Position Profile
This position profile provides information for qualified candidates for the position of Dean of the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University.
Position Overview
Santa Clara University, a Jesuit Catholic institution located in Silicon Valley, invites applications and nominations for the position of Dean of the Leavey School of Business.
The Leavey School of Business has grown in national prominence as its faculty scholarship becomes widely recognized, and its students and alumni lead some of the fastest growing and most dynamic institutions in the world.
The Leavey School of Business is part of Santa Clara University, the oldest institution of higher learning in California, which also is home to its College of Arts and Sciences, a nationally prominent School of Law, its School of Engineering, the School of Education and Counseling Psychology, and the Jesuit School of Theology. In its more than 150-year history, Santa Clara University has produced alumni leaders in organizations as diverse as state and federal governments to the Vatican, from banking to biotech.
Santa Clara County is home to nearly 2 million people (2008 estimate), enjoying great diversity in population, with a higher-than-average educational and income levels. The greater Bay Area counts world-class museums, theater, music, and dance companies among its cultural offerings. The Mediterranean climate provides mild seasons: cool, rainy winters and warm, dry summers, which helped create a thriving agricultural industry in the area during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some orchards and vineyards remain in the Valley, especially in the southern part of the county.
Dean's Roles and Responsibilities
The Dean reports directly to the University Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. The Dean leads the Business School faculty in management of the School’s faculty, students, and staff, and participates in University-wide councils with the President and his Cabinet.
Among the Dean’s responsibilities are strategic planning, curriculum development, and resource management and development (fund-raising, revenue development, staffing management, and facilities expansion).
Candidate Qualifications
The University seeks a Dean who has a record of academic and/or professional accomplishment appropriate for the position of Dean and for appointment as a tenured professor in the School.
The candidate must demonstrate a commitment to excellence in business education and the Jesuit educational vision of developing leaders of professional competence, conscience, and compassion.
Key qualities include:
- Ability to articulate and implement a compelling vision for engaging the School and University with Silicon Valley, national, and international business communities;
- Ability to increase the School’s global focus and presence;
- Experience in developing synergistic and strategic partnerships across disciplines on campus and with key external communities
- Intellectual qualities, character, and personal style that command the respect of faculty, students, staff, and the University’s external constituencies.
The Leavey School of Business
Virtually from its inception in 1851, Santa Clara offered coursework in traditional business disciplines. The college brought together faculty teaching these courses into a College of Commerce in 1923, transitioning into the School of Business and Administration in 1925.
Always innovative and entrepreneurial, Business School leaders were the first to admit women to classes in the all-male Jesuit School (1947), developed an executive education program for non-matriculated professionals (1957), and launched the first accredited evening MBA program for working professionals (1959). The Leavey School was accredited by AACSB in 1953, one of the first 100 business schools in the nation to receive this recognition.
In 2008, Business School faculty and staff moved into the 86,000-square-foot Donald L. Lucas Hall, built at a cost of $49 million (100% privately funded). The building includes 12 classrooms (two devoted exclusively to executive education and the Executive and Accelerated MBA programs), six large executive style conference rooms, a 100-seat seminar room, 16 team project rooms, and more than 100 faculty offices. The facility includes videoconferencing capabilities in each classroom, conference room, and team project room, as well as wireless access throughout the building and surrounding grounds.
Mission Statement
The Leavey School of Business develops men and women with competence, conscience, and compassion who can provide leadership in technologically advanced and rapidly changing global environments. The development of competence is reflected in our commitment to teaching excellence and the scholarly research necessary to animate instruction and foster the creation of knowledge. The development of conscience is enhanced through an emphasis on reflective inquiry that is both professionally rigorous and ethically sound. Compassion is at the intersection of competence and conscience, and is fostered through an appreciation of multiple perspectives and recognition of the human being as part of every equation.
The Faculty and Research
In the tradition of teacher-scholars, LSB faculty pursue research that integrates theory with practice, emphasizes innovation, and invigorates the best practices for our region’s industries.
The faculty comprise nearly 70 tenured and tenure-track faculty. In addition, some 30 lecturers are appointed for an academic year term based on a combination of their academic and professional expertise, as well as several quarterly adjunct faculty whose professional backgrounds enable them to provide specialized instruction in select classes.
Faculty research influences discipline thought and business practice. Among the international thought-leaders on the Leavey School of Business faculty is Hersh Shefrin, professor of Finance, who in 2003 was listed among the top 15 theorists to influence empirical work in microeconomics. He is the author of Beyond Greed and Fear, the definitive tome on behavioral finance, and Ending the Management Illusion (2008), a prescient analysis of behavioral traps which ensnared managers precipitating the recent global financial crisis.
The work of his Finance Department colleague, Meir Statman, a global authority on investor behavior and socially responsible investing, has earned him recognition by academic organizations who have awarded the Batterymarch Fellowship, a William F. Sharpe Best Paper Award, a Bernstein Fabozzi/Jacobs Levy Outstanding Article Award, a Moskowitz Prize for best paper on socially responsible investing and two Graham and Dodd Awards of Excellence. He is also a popular speaker and commentator on investor behavior for the business press, including the Wall Street Journal and Fortune magazine.
Faculty work has also been highlighted in such publications as the Harvard Business Review, which called Marketing professor Kirthi Kalyanam’s research on dialogue marketing ‘one of the year’s best ideas,’ and highlighted OMIS professor Naren Agrawal’s research in the profitability of after-market selling. Management professor Barry Z. Posner continues his work in leadership studies, producing such best-sellers as The Leadership Challenge, and Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It.
Recent research developments are communicated to colleagues via a working paper series published by the Social Science Research Network, and to a general, ‘educated but not academic,’ audience through Mind|Work, a quarterly newsletter sent to alumni and business leaders.
CAEP manages and expands relationships between the Accounting Department, its students, and its external constituents.
Intent on becoming a globally recognized entrepreneurship program that leverages the unique advantages of its location in Silicon Valley, the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship builds on the University's Jesuit educational excellence, state-of-the-art facilities, distinguished faculty, and a well regarded alumni network to prepare students for entrepreneurial leadership in a variety of organizations.
The Civil Society Institute at Santa Clara University is a program dedicated to educating students in the classic themes of political economy and their relevance to contemporary policy issues.
The Food & Agribusiness Institute offers undergraduate, graduates, and professional education programs as well as conducts research exploring the relationships of food production, agribusiness policy and leadership, supply chain efficiencies and food safety, poverty, and the environment. In addition to its curriculum offerings, the Institute sponsors executive development programs, lecturers, and conferences for both academic and public policy leaders.
The Retail Management Institute provides unique educational and career development opportunities for students and retail professionals through three major initiatives: the Retail Studies Program, Retail Management Development programs, and the Retail Workbench, a research center for academics and retail leadership.
The Santa Clara Initiative for Financial Innovation and Risk Management is an interdisciplinary research center focused on accounting, finance, mathematics, ethics, risk management, and portfolio management, with emphasis on the advocacy of ethical business behavior.
Students and Academic Programs
The Leavey School of Business offers degrees at the undergraduate and graduate levels, equipping students with a professional business education, the technical skills necessary for success, and the ethical, global, and humanistic perspectives that are hallmarks of a Jesuit education. Approximately 1,600 undergraduates are enrolled in its BS in Commerce program, and nearly 1,200 graduate business students are enrolled either its MBA or its MS in Information System programs.
Bachelor of Science in Commerce (BSC)
The liberal arts serve as the cornerstone of a Santa Clara education. During freshman and sophomore years, all business students take a common core of liberal arts along with their introductory business courses. The ensuing junior and senior years feature specialization in a chosen major and wide-ranging exposure to the world of business through a common core of six business courses, including accounting, economics, finance, management, marketing, and operations and management information systems. All coursework culminates in a capstone course taken in the senior year.
The Leavey School of Business also prepares College of Arts & Sciences students to receive the Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Economics.
Currently there are approximately 1,600 undergraduate students enrolled in the Leavey School of Business.
Master in Business Administration (MBA)
To allow students to pursue their MBA degrees while continuing their careers, all coursework is completed in the evening, during weekends, or both. The curriculum blends instruction in theory with practical applications, enriched by faculty engaged in state-of-the-art research and students who deal daily with real-life organizational challenges.
The MBA degree may be earned through one of three discrete programs with different curricular emphases: the Evening MBA (a generalist curriculum), the Accelerated MBA (focused on either the finance or marketing discipline), and the Executive MBA (a cross-disciplinary, collaborative approach).
The program also offers cohort-based programs for young professionals and those who wish to participate in a lock-step course of study.
Master of Science in Information Systems (MSIS)
Developed in response to Silicon Valley’s need for technologically adept business leaders, the MSIS program is designed for either technology leaders or business managers needing deeper expertise in information technology. The degree focuses on application of technology for solving real organizational and business problems. Much of the coursework is project-based, applying learning to actual challenges in the field. Students learn how to integrate emerging technologies into organizational practices and to successfully manage complex, technically centered change processes.
Joint Graduate Programs
The Leavey School of Business and the University’s School of Law offer joint J.D./MBA and J.D./MSIS programs.
Currently there are approximately 1,200 students enrolled in all graduate business programs.
Executive Education
For more than 50 years, the Executive Development Center (EDC) has offered company-specific and open-enrollment professional development programs in all business disciplines, as well as managing the Certified Equity Professionals Institute (CEPI), and built partnerships with international business educators.
Silicon Valley Community
As the institution at the very center of the world’s most dynamic business environment, Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business is the heart of Silicon Valley in more ways than one.
Located approximately 60 miles south of San Francisco and 90 miles north of Monterey and the Carmel Valley, Santa Clara University is centered on the site of one of California's historic missions, Mission Santa Clara de Asis (1777). The University was founded in 1851 by the Jesuits, and is the oldest institution of higher learning in California.
The campus is just minutes away from Fortune 500 companies such as Cisco Systems, Intel, Hewlett Packard, Google, as well as start-ups in biotech and green technology. Leaders of these companies serve as
advisors to the Dean and other Business School centers, guest speakers in the classroom, and research partners for faculty.
Application / Nomination Procedure
Nominations and applications should be submitted immediately, although the Search Committee will continue to review nominations and applications until the position is filled. Please send all correspondence electronically. Curriculum vitae/resumes should be sent in Microsoft Word to:
Dr. Ilene Nagel
Leader, Higher Education Practice
Russell Reynolds Associates
sculsbdean@russellreynolds.com
E-mail this page